The following is a guest post by Pete Tomlinson, Director of Sales & Marketing, KCOM Group.
What do myself, Tien Tzuo and Anthony Fletcher (the CEO of Graze) have in common? Well it turns out we have a shared vision for the future of how relationships between businesses and their customers should be. So, perhaps it’s not such a coincidence that we’ll be sharing a stage on 7th October for the London leg of the Subscribed World Tour.
KCOM is a technology business; we help people find better ways to connect, communicate and collaborate. Now it’s fair to say the tech industry sometimes has a bit of a reputation for being better at selling things than it is at supporting them. That’s unfortunate, but it’s something I believe the Subscription Economy has the power to change forever.
It’s easy to think of subscriptions as simply being the difference between buying something for a one-off payment, or paying monthly. I hate that, this is not a CAPEX versus OPEX debate; subscription is a living thing, it evolves, it’s a relationship.
The convergence of software and communications is causing traditional technology silos to collapse. For us that means we need to give a consistent (and obviously excellent) customer experience across everything we do. No longer is it okay to simply bundle services, we need to go further and integrate them into a single customer experience.
Like all good relationships, it also has to be built on trust. As the traditional buying cycle of making a technology investment and replacing it three to five years later is dead, subscription-based services have to constantly evolve. However, that means not every feature or technical spec can be defined and buttoned down – it’s a live contract and for many businesses that still feels rather uncomfortable.
The good news is that this shift isn’t just for the young businesses around – we celebrated our 100th birthday last century – so if we can do it, so can you!